risk of injuring my own, and of incurring the final perdition of us both."

'MR. MER. This answer rather provoked than satisfied, I suppose?

'SIR CH. Provocation was not my intention. I designed only to remind him of the obligations we were both under to our respective families, and to throw in a hint of a still superior consideration. It was likely to have more force in that Roman Catholic country than, I am sorry to say it, it would in this Protestant one.

'SIR HAR. How, how, Sir Charles, did it end? 'SIR CH. I went to Verona. He followed me thither; and endeavoured to provoke me to draw. "Why should I draw?" said I, "Will the decision by the sword be certainly that of justice? You are in a passion. You have no reason to doubt either my skill or my courage ;" [On such an occasion, gentlemen, and with such a view, a mau may perhaps be allowed to give himself a little consequence:]" and solemnly once more do I avow my innocence; and desire to be brought face to face with my accusers."

'He raved the more for my calmness. I turned from him, with intent to leave him. He thought fit to offer me a personal insult. I now, methinks, blush to tell it he gave me a box on the ear, to provoke me to draw.

'MR. MER. And did you draw, sir?

'MR. BAG. To be sure, you then drew?

'MR. JOR. Pray, Sir Charles, let us know. You could not then help drawing? This was a provocation that would justify a saint.

'SIR CH. He had forgot, in that passionate moment, that he was a gentleman. I did not re'member that I was one. But I had no occasion to draw.

'SIR HAR. What a plague-You did not cane him?

'SIR CH. He got well after a fortnight's lying by.

SIR HAR. Damnation !

'SIR CH. I put him into possession of the lodgings I had taken for myself, and into proper and safe hands. He was, indeed, unable for a day or two to direct for himself. I sent for his friends. His servant did me justice as to the provocation. Then it was that I was obliged, in a letter, to acquaint the father of a discovery I had made, which the son had refused to hear; which, with the lady's confession, convinced them all of my innocence. His father acknowledged my moderation; as the young gentleman himself did, desiring a renewal of friendship: but as I thought the affair had gone too far for a cordial reconciliation, and knew that he would not want instigators to urge him to resent an indignity, which he had, however, brought upon himself by a greater offered to me, I took leave of him and his friends, and revisited some of the German courts; that of Vienna in particular, where I resided some time.

In the mean while the young gentleman married. His lady, of the Altieri family, is an excellent woman. He had a great fortune with her. Soon after his nuptials, he let me know, that, as he doubted not, if I had drawn my sword, I should, from his violence at the time, have had his life in my power, he could not but acknowledge, that he owed all his acquisitions, and the best of wives, as well as the happiness of both families, with that life, to me.

"I apply not this instance: but, Sir Hargrave, as I hope to see you married, and happy, though it can never be, I think, to Miss Byron, such gene

rous acknowledgments as misbecome not an Italian, I shall then hope for from an Englishman.

SIR HAR. And had your Italian any marks left him, sir?-Depend upon it, I shall never look into a glass, but I shall curse you to the very pit!

'SIR CH. Well, Sir Hargrave, this only I will add, that be as sensible as you will, and as I am, of the happy issue of this untoward affair, I will never expect a compliment from you, that shall tend to your abasement.

'MR. JOR. Your hand, Sir Hargrave, to Sir Charles

SIR HAR. What, without terms! Curse me, if I do!-But let him bring Miss Byron in his hand to me; (that is the least he can do) then may I thank him for my wife.

Sir Charles made some smiling answer: but the writer heard it not.

'Sir Charles would then have taken leave: but all the gentlemen, Sir Hargrave amongst the rest, were earnest with him to stay a little longer.

'MR. JOR. My conversion must be perfected, sir Charles. This is a subject that concerns us all. We shall remember every tittle of the conversation ; and think of it when we do not see you. Let me beg of you to acquaint me, how you came to differ from all other men of honour in your practice, as well as in your notions, upon this subject?

SIR CH. I will answer your question, Mr. Jordan, as briefly as I can.

My father was a man of spirit. He had high notions of honour, and he inspired me early with the same. I had not passed my twelfth year, when he gave me a master to teach me what is called, The science of defence. I was fond of the prac tice, and soon obtained such a skill in the weapons, as pleased both my father and master. I had

strength of body beyond my years: the exercise added to it. I had agility; it added to my agility: and the praises given me by my father and master, so heightened my courage, that I was almost inclined to wish for a subject to exercise it upon. My mother was an excellent woman; she had instilled into my earliest youth, almost from infancy, notions of moral rectitude, and the first principles of Christianity, now rather ridiculed than inculcated in our youth of condition. She was ready sometimes to tremble at the consequences, which she thought might follow from the attention which I paid (thus encouraged and applauded) to this practice; and was continually reading lectures to me up. on true magnanimity, and upon the law of kindness, benevolence, and forgiveness of injuries. Had I not lost her so soon as I did, I should have been a more perfect scholar than I am in these noble doc. trines. As she knew me to be naturally hasty, and very sensible of affronts; and as she had observed, as she told me, that even in the delight she had brought me to take in doing good, I shewed an over-readiness, even to rashness, which she thought might lead me into errors, that would more than overbalance the good I aimed to do; she redoubled her efforts to keep me right: and, on this particular acquirement of a skill in the management of the weapons, she frequently enforced upon me an observation of Mr. Locke" That young men, in their warm blood, are often forward to think they have in vain learned to fence, if they never shew their skill in a duel.".

This observation, insisted upon and inculcated, as she knew how, was very seasonable at the time of danger. And she never forgot to urge upon me, that the science I was learning, was a science properly called of defence, and not of offence; at

the same time endeavouring to caution me against the low company into which a dexterity at my weapons might lead me, as well as against the diversions themselves exhibited at the infamous places where those brutal people resorted: infamous even by name*, as well as in the nature of them.

'From her instructions I had an early notion, that it was much more noble to forgive an injury than to resent it; and to give a life, than to take it. My father (I honour his memory!) was a man of gaiety, of munificence. Head great qualities. But my mother was my oracle. And he was always so just to her merit, as to command me to consider her as such; and the rather, he used to say, as she distinguished well between the false glory and the true; and would not have her boy a coward.

'MR. MER. A good beginning, by my life! 'MR. JOR. Pray proceed, Sir Charles. I am

all attention.

'SIR HAR.

'MR. BAG. terrupt you.

Aye, aye, we all listen.

Curse him that speaks next, to in

'SIR CH. But what indelibly impressed upon my heart my mother's lessons, was an occurrence, which, and the consequences of it, I shall ever deplore. My father, having taken leave of my nother, on a proposed absence of a few days, was, in an hour after, brought home, as it was thought, mortally wounded in a duel. My mother's surprize on this occasion threw her into fits, from which she never after was wholly free. And these, and the dangerous way he continued in for some time, brought her into an ill state of health; broke, in

* Hockley in the Hole, Bear-Garden, &c.